It’s clear that the first actions of Congress, now that the pomp and ceremony of the opening week has concluded, will be to try to escalate the situation with Russia. Incoming Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus threw the intelligence and media frothing dogs a bone, saying that Mr. Trump accepts some of the conclusions of the intelligence agencies, saying “He’s not denying that entities in Russia were behind this particular campaign. I think he accepts the findings.”

Accepting the findings doesn’t necessarily mean that he agrees with the entirety of the report or every aspect of their assessment. It’s part of a completed transaction. The intelligence community presents the report, Trump accepts it, as in “please accept these findings on behalf of the intelligence chiefs.” There is no implicit agreement necessarily and no automatic need for a response.

One of Mr. Trump’s weak links of support is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell is leaning towards an adversarial position with Mr. Trump on the issue, siding with the war-mongers McCain and Graham, who are calling for an expansion of hostilities.

McConnell said of Mr. Trump’s hopes for better relations with Russia, “My suspicion is these hopes will be dashed pretty quickly. The Russians are clearly a big adversary. And they demonstrated it by trying to mess around in our election.

Graham, who is trying to force Mr. Trump to acquiesce to his anti-Russia initiatives, said, “He’s going to be the defender of the free world here pretty soon. All I’m asking him is to acknowledge that Russia interfered, and push back. It could be Iran next time. It could be China.”

Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, said the response could be part cyber, part military but that, “There has to be a response.” His boss already responded. If he wants to engage in a military operation against Russia to defend the sloppy disinterest in security of Hillary Clinton, he should have his head examined.

Why are these establishment tools so anxious to go to war over incidental DNC leaks or hacks, but so anxious to sweep the crimes of Hillary Clinton under the rug? There were serious consequences of those actions and they did involve foreign governments and corruption. Why the double standard with her indifference to security?

The report indicated that Russia used state-funded propaganda and paid “trolls” to make nasty comments on social media services. That’s something the Clinton campaign was heavily involved in against Mr. Trump, dumping their billions of dollars into disinformation and propaganda. It’s called “winning the hearts and minds” in US jargon, which is totally acceptable when we’re the ones doing it. It’s also Obama and the media have forgotten that the Obama regime engaged in in attempting to defeat Mr. Netanyahu in Israel in 2015.

Our election system was not hacked. A sloppy, reckless candidate and her equally sloppy national party may or may not have been. That’s not the kind of thing Americans want to go to war over, although we’d be thrilled to see her taken to court.

Trump is going to face an increasing number of incoming arrows from all directions. The DC swamp knows no party. His fellow Republicans as well as their Democrat comrades will soon be making that vividly clear. They never challenged the usurper Obama, as he always did the bidding of those who are really in charge, who placed him there, who thought they would be able to insert Clinton as well. Trump has his hands full with this DC riff-raff. He’d better keep a set of trusted eyes on his back.

As always, we must follow the money. Warhawks like McCain, Graham and McConnell derive much of their wealth from their bosses in the military-industrial complex. The companies of the military-industrial complex reply on international military conflict for their profits. Trump wants to reduce or eliminate our involvement in foreign conflict. Consequently, the bosses are putting intense pressure on the warhawks to force Trump to take actions that will foment U.S. conflict with other nations.

Fortunately, both Trump and Putin are big boys who understand what’s happening and it’s not likely they will succumb to the pressures.

Let’s, like in the past, “follow the Benjamins” and see which direction they flow with this “war-footing” crap.
What do McCain and Graham stand to gain? I’m sure it has nothing to do with our “security” as, if it did, they’d be going after Hillary and o’shitbag with the same fervor, right?